Close to the sons of Sparda's childhood home was a playground, even though the only kids to ever visit it were the two of them. Once it had been frequented by children from other houses nearby, but they eventually never returned once their parents realized those two white-haired kids would always be there.

Dante never found out whether they could sense their demonic aura in some way, or whether those parents were afraid of them by how they once broke the merry-go-round with ease – they had a fight and Vergil threw him at it. Whatever the reason, it meant that for most of his childhood, the only other kid he could play with was his brother.

One day, back when they were seven, he was bothering Vergil, who was sitting on one of the benches trying to read a book.

"C'mooon, play with just a little, I'm booored." He dramatically threw himself on the floor with his arms wide open.

"I can arrange you a book so we can both read."

Dante narrowed his eyebrows. "You know I hate reading!" He went back on his feet with a pout on his face. "Fine, I can play by myself." He grabbed his wooden sword from the floor.

"Good."

"I'm leeeeaving!" He announced, once again being dramatic.

"Nice."

The younger sibling rolled his eyes and went to the other side of the playground all by his lone self. It was incredibly frustrating whenever Vergil wouldn't play with him, what else was he supposed to do?! He decided to try and use his imagination, pretending to fight a demon just like his father would do. It was actually working as a distraction until he tripped on something and fell on his face.

"Ouch!" The 'something' yelled.

Dante raised his head and looked at it: it was a girl around his age, crouching behind the playhouse. Her copper hair was tied in pigtails. He couldn't see her face because she was hiding it in her legs. He stood up and slowly approached her.

"Uhm... I'm sorry." He scratched the back of his head, feeling embarrassed.

The girl raised her head and angrily stared into his eyes. "Just be careful, okay?!" She had freckles on her nose and cheeks.

"I was distracted fighting some demons and didn't see you there."

The redhead widened her deep green eyes.

"There are demons here?!" She quickly stood up and turned to all directions, scared and trying to find out where they were.

"No, no! I mean, I was pretending to fight them..."

She tilted her head to the side with both eyebrows arched, as if trying to understand him. After a moment, she just said with all the honest in her heart:

"You're weird..."

Dante looked down, disappointed. With him and his brother it was always like that, they never managed to make any friends and nobody would hangout with them at school, claiming they were weird.

"But I like it." She closed her eyes and gave him a warm smile.

The little half-demon blushed and scratched the back of his head once again.

"I'm Phoebe."

"Dante."

"Can I play with you?"

He froze. His mother always said that, if he ever played with other kids, he would have to be very careful about it, as he and Vergil were both way stronger than regular children. Not knowing what to do, the son of Sparda said the stupidest thing he would regret for the rest of his life:

"No way, you're a girl." Dante crossed his arms, acting confident. "Girls can't fight."

Phoebe's eyes burned with hatred as she took the wooden sword from his hand and smashed it against his head multiple times. Once she was done, she threw it at his feet and walked away. He stood there in shock with his hands on his head, and widened his eyes as he saw a few droplets of blood on them.

He walked back to his brother who still was peacefully reading on the bench.

"Hey, Vergil... Do you have any books on how to talk to girls?"

His brother raised his eyes to look at him, and arched an eyebrow.

"What did you do?"

On the following day, he tried his best to apologize.

Away from the dream realm, Vergil was hitting Dante on his ribs with Yamato's hilt, urging him to wake up. The younger brother just turned on his side, still lying on the floor.

"Five more minutes..."

"Not even one! Stop being lazy for once."

He sat up and crossed his legs. "I'm actually impressed you didn't kill me in my sleep."

"There is no honor in victory without a proper fight."

Dante rolled his eyes and stood up. "Yeah, yeah, whatever." He mumbled. A huge pack of demons suddenly surrounded them, and he made the Devil Sword Dante show up in his hand. "Woohoo, wow, another pack of demons, how unexpected!"

"At least I'm not going to hear you say..."

"Jackpot? Okay, that just got me fired up."

Vergil rolled his eyes as he watched his younger brother's sudden excitement only to bother him.

Back to the human world, both Phoebe and Trish were still appalled at what they just had seen.

"How is he even alive?!"

"I mean, Vergil went through hell and back and is still alive, right? It wouldn't be too hard for... Geez, it feels weird just saying his name now." The sorceress placed both hands on her hips as she analyzed the situation. "And it doesn't necessarily mean that thing is him as a whole, you know?"

"Maybe you're right... Let's go, the sooner we bring Dante back, the better."

The two women decided not to tell anyone about what they had seen until the sons of Sparda were back in the human world. Back at the Devil May Cry they reunited with Lady and Nero to discuss the plan.

"I thought Dante had told you not to go after them so there would be someone in the human world to protect it." Trish had a hand on her hip as she stared at the young devil hunter with an arched eyebrow.

"That's not what he said, he said that, because I was here, they both could go to the underworld."

"It's the same thing!"

"But now there's no risk of me getting trapped there because we have her!" He pointed at Phoebe, who was just watching them with her arms crossed. "What do you think?"

She rolled her eyes. "I think that you, Trish and I should go. The portal will close as soon as we get through, there's no risk of demons coming to this side."

"You can't go in there, you don't have demon blood." The blonde woman pointed it out.

"But I've made a pact with one."

"It still won't protect you."

The redhead sighed. "Then how am I gonna know when to open the portal again? I can't keep opening it until I get the timing right."

"Why not?" Nero asked.

"The spell takes too much energy, I can't do it more than twice in forty-eight hours without collapsing."

"Can't you create some sort of signal that crosses the barriers between human world and underworld to create some sort of signal?" Lady asked.

Phoebe tilted her head to the side, wondering if that was possible even though it really was a good idea. It would be impossible to create some sort of beacon, but perhaps she could create a link between two objects. The redhead quickly went to the street and returned with two small stones she has found on the ground.

"Okay, I can make these two stones resonate with each other even from afar." She placed each on a different palm and held them until they started glowing yellow. As soon as they went back to their original colors, the sorceress handed one to Trish. "Close your fist around it."

The demoness did exactly as she said and the stone on Phoebe's hand started glowing again.

"Good, it works. When you guys reach the right place, just use the stone and I'll know when to open the portal."

"Do I take this as a sign that you trust Trish more with this task than you trust me?" The young devil hunter asked.

The redhead arched an eyebrow. "Why would it be the other way around?"

"Is Nero whining again? Such a baby." Nico teased as she stood by the door frame of the office. "You guys ready to go?" They all nodded in unison.

"I'm not whining, I just think you people don't give me enough credit."

"It's because they don't trust babies."

"Enough with the baby thing."

"Baby." She grinned mischievously as the boy passed by her rolling his eyes.

Fortuna was a place where the connection between human world and underworld was stronger, making it one of the perfect options to perform the spell. The gunsmith drove them there even with all the yelling for her to drive carefully and keep her eyes on the road.

When they finally arrived in the woods - Nero had been very strict about doing it really far away from the town - most of them had already forgotten how they were atheists, as they had to pray a lot to get there in one piece.

Phoebe took a deep breath and created a big magic circle on the floor with just a wave of her hands. It started off with a yellow glowing, but as she started walking around it while saying some words in demonic language, the color started to change to orange until it eventually turned to a bright red.

The wind got stronger by the second, until Nico eventually gave up on trying to keep her cigarette lit. By the time she and Lady started to think they were about to be dragged by a hurricane, they hurriedly got back inside the RV.

The redhead could feel her heart burning, and every blink brought back the memory of Billy's face. She turned up the song in her head and began reciting the demonic words even louder until the wind came to a sudden stop.

The floor inside the circle started to crack, until it revealed the portal to the underworld. Nero and Trish nodded at each other and jumped inside as the sorceress yelled at them to be careful. The ground slowly started to go back to normal.

Both devil hunters landed on the ground with ease, and the blonde demoness quickly looked around to recognize where they were.

"The Qliphoth was standing right over there." She pointed to the left. "I don't think they have any reason to wander around after that."

"Don't you think they'd be looking for a way out?"

"From time to time, random portals are created in the underworld that lead to the human world, but you need to be really lucky to find one of those. It would be best to stand your ground and wait than to go around looking for one."

"Okay, let's go."

It was a three hour walk, with demons to kill along the way, until they reached the place where once stood the Qliphoth's roots. It was no surprise when they found the two sons of Sparda fighting each other. Nero rolled his eyes and sighed, turning into his devil form and punching them away from each other. Vergil fell on his knees and stared angrily at his child.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"What did I tell you about stopping that ridiculous sibling rivalry? The two of you can barely stand anymore and you keep at it. Grow up."

"That's it, your kid is still gonna be the death of us." Dante muttered as he laid on the ground. "Didn't we tell you not to follow us?"

"I have a way out, dumbasses."

"How?"

"Phoebe." Trish announced as she approached the younger brother to help him back to his feet. His expression wasn't exactly pleased.

"Please don't tell me you forced Pheebs into this."

The youngest devil hunter arched an eyebrow as he heard the nickname.

"No." The blonde lied.

"Kinda." But the boy decided to be honest about it. Dante's eyes glared at him with anger.

"Everything is under control." She pronounced each word slowly to calm him down. "We just need to go back to where Nero and I came from."

"By the way, here's your book, asshole." He grabbed the book with a big "V" on its cover and threw it at his father's feet. "Very interesting reading."

"I'm glad someone else in this family can actually use his brain."

The younger brother rolled his eyes. "Well, let's get going, then."

"I'm only coming along because there's nothing else I want down here." Vergil announced, causing everybody else to roll their eyes.

Meanwhile, in the human world, Nico had already fallen asleep on the RV's couch and Lady was pretty close to doing the same on the steps, with her head leaning against the door. The sorceress, on the other hand, had been playing with a few spells all that time and was well awake.

"Do you think they'll take how much longer?" The woman with the mismatched eyes yawned.

"No idea. The underworld must be huge."

"Do you think it's as big as Earth?"

"Hm, probably not. I'd bet something like the size of a continent."

There were a few minutes of silence as the devil huntress' eyes followed the fireball that danced on the air with Phoebe's commands.

"Are you back in the game?"

"What?"

"You just managed to perform this huge spell, don't you think you're ready to... leave retirement?"

"... I haven't thought about it."

"It'd be fun having you around again..."

"Well, there's you, Trish, Dante… I think that's a lot of devil hunters taking jobs already."

"We can always steal all the jobs from Dante and be like Charlie's Angels or something."

"Morrison's Angels." They both laughed.

Lady arched an eyebrow as she saw something glow inside the redhead's pocket, until she remembered it was the stone. "Hey, is that a glowing stone or are you just happy to see me?"

The other woman tilted her head to the side, clearly confused, until she also remembered about the stone and took it from her pocket to check it. It really was glowing.

"Thanks, Lady, you just made me imagine a glowing dick."

"It would be crazy, wouldn't it?"

"It would be hideous."

Phoebe repeated the whole process to open the portal once more, which caused Nico to wake up and complain about not being warned. The other brunette just shushed her. As soon as the ground opened itself, the sorceress fell to her knees, completely exhausted from executing the spell twice. Lady hurried to her side, as the other four crossed back to the human world.

Dante put the blonde demoness down – he had to carry her in his demon form as they had to fly up to reach the portal – and also hurried to the redhead's side as he saw her on the floor.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm just out of shape and used most of my magic." They stared at each other's eyes for a moment before she suddenly threw her arms around him, almost making him fall on his back. "I was worried about you, moron." She whispered.

"C'mon, it isn't my first rodeo in the underworld." He chuckled.

"It will be your last if you do something like this again." Phoebe muttered and he laughed out loud as he helped her get to her feet.

He gently placed a hand on her cheek and caressed it.

"You shouldn't have done this."

The redhead angrily narrowed her eyes and took his hand away from her.

"You were trapped in the underworld for three months!"

"A portal would show up eventually."

"Three months! You have wounds all over your face!"

"It's already healing. I just don't want you under stressful situations!"

"I know my limits! Cazzo, this is why we keep fighting."

They were all looking at them as they both started to raise their voices. Nero intended to approach and try to stop them, but Trish stopped him midway.

"Then please, enlighten me, why do we keep fighting?"

"Perché continui a trattarmi con condiscenza, anche se ti dico di non preoccuparti!" Phoebe had spent her late childhood and teenage years in Italy, and she would often scream in italiana whenever she got too angry.

"Nice, you just went full Italian again." Dante sighed and looked at the rest of the group. "You all just gonna stand there?"

The sorceress started pacing around the place to calm herself down with her hands above her head. Nero stared at his father and gestured for him to come.

"I'm taking my... father to my place." He had to swallow hard to say the word without sounding ironic, but it did still sound somewhat wrong.

"I'm fine."

"You need to rest."

"You're right, kid, your old man definitely needs rest, he's too old for this shit." He slowly approached his nephew and whispered to him with a hand on his shoulder. "Don't let him out of your sight."

The boy nodded. Vergil protested as he was practically dragged to the RV. Trish and Lady took the hint and went with them. When they were finally gone, Dante turned back to the redhead who had already managed to calm down.

"I'm sorry." Phoebe whispered.

"I didn't hear ya." Which was obviously a lie, so he had a mischievous grin on his face.

"I said I'm sorry!" She said it so loud while rolling her eyes that it echoed in the forest. "I just... found a way to keep the PTSD more manageable. You don't need to worry."

"Stop telling me not to worry."

"Shave that beard and I might actually listen to you."

He chuckled. "I'll do it as soon as we get to the office, I swear."

The devil hunter affectionately raised her chin with his thumb and index fingers. He stared deep into her eyes and realized they were different; Phoebe had always had some kind of spark in her eyes that almost made them glow like green fire, however, that spark had been gone ever since Billy's death. That spark was finally back.

"I missed it, you know?"

"What?"

"You having a fit of anger." Dante watched as she rolled her eyes. "No, seriously, it's been years."

"Since when is that a good thing?"

"It has its benefits when in the right place."

The white haired man pulled her close by the waist and gave her a deep kiss. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back, although it didn't last for long as she noticed the foul smell coming from him. The sorceress couldn't help but start laughing, killing the mood.

"Dante, you desperately need a shower."

"Yeah... you're right. Can you take us to the office?"

She nodded in agreement and held his hand and, in the blink of an eye, they were inside a bathroom. The devil hunter let out a sigh of relief as he removed his clothes, however, Phoebe kept looking around, thinking the place had changed too much. It wasn't like him to remodel a room, but maybe something had happened.

"Aren't you coming?" He asked as water was already running down his body.

"Yeah." She made a quick gesture and her clothes disappeared, she got in the shower and wrapped her hands around Dante's neck. "Where were we?"

And they went back to kissing as the devil hunter enjoyed the best shower he could have after months.